The winner of the inaugural Front Line Award was Dr. Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, Chairperson of the Sudan Social Development Organization (SUDO). The Front Line Award was presented to Dr Mudawi's wife, Sabah, and daughter, Huda, by the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, at a ceremony in Dublin's City Hall on 13th May 2005. At the time of the presentation Dr Mudawi was in detention in Khartoum having been arrested for the third time in eighteen months on 9th May 2005. He was released again on 16th May 2005.

Winner Human Rights First Award

2005

The winners of the 2005 Human Rights Award presented by Human Rights First were Dr. Mudawi Ibrahim Adam of Sudan and Ludmilla Alexeeva of Russia.

Dr. Mudawi Ibrahim Adam is a Sudanese human rights defender and engineer known for his role in exposing human rights violations in Darfur. He has repeatedly been jailed for charges related to his human rights work. He is the founder and Chairperson of the Sudan Social Development Organization (SUDO), which works on human rights as well as water, sanitation and health. SUDO has held workshops with various groups in Sudanese society on human rights and providing humanitarian assistance to the millions who have been forced to flee their homes as a result of war, and under Mudawi's leadership has implemented a peace-building and reconciliation project with different tribal groups in Southern Darfur. As a prisoner he continued to demand human rights reforms in Sudan, going on hunger strike to protest being held in solitary confinement without charge, and being denied access to a lawyer, his family or medical attention. In recognition of his perseverence in promoting and defending human rights in Sudan, Dr. Mudawi Ibrahim Adam received the inaugural Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk in 2005.

The ongoing violence by government forces, pro-government militia groups and anti-government armed group forms the backdrop to continued harassment, arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detentions and alleged torture of human rights defenders (HRDs) by Sudanese military and security forces. Freedom of expression and freedom of association and assembly have been increasingly curtailed. In particular, NGO members, journalists and student activists have been targeted.